


Nine in the Afternoon

by VeryImportantDemon



Category: Stitchers (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, High School AU, Kirsten and Cameron read books together, Little Dialogue, That's a stylistic choice to emphasize Kirsten and Cameron's relationship, childhood AU, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 12:19:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12189873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VeryImportantDemon/pseuds/VeryImportantDemon
Summary: They meet the first time at the hospital. Kirsten doesn't remember this, and Cameron barely recalls it. After all, he is young then, and he's in a lot of pain. He has just had surgery, after all. He remembers after.





	Nine in the Afternoon

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Stitchmas in September 2017 and the lovely cinnamonrollcameron on tumblr! Sorry it isn't actually a high school AU, haha. Their child selves called me. Hope you like it!

  
They meet the first time at the hospital. Kirsten doesn't remember this, and Cameron barely recalls it. After all, he is young then, and he's in a lot of pain. He has just had surgery, after all. He remembers after.

In the moment... He wants to be kind to her. She is there, by her mother's bed, painting her nails, in the end of May when girls should be out swimming and going on vacation and having fun. And Cameron wants to make her happy. Cameron really wants to make her happy. So... He goes in. He goes in and talks to her and promises her that it'll be alright even though it's a promise his own parents wouldn't make him when his heart first started acting up. He decides that he's going to make certain that things are alright for this girl.

He isn't sure how well he does, but he guesses well enough because she asks him to stay even after he's comforted her. She hands him the bottle of nail polish and asks if he'll do her other hand. Cameron obliges because he promises himself he'll do anything to help her. Anything at all. He will even paint her sleeping mother's nails, and he does. Maybe not well, but he does it, and Kirsten smiles at the work he does. He hesitates, not wanting to overstay his welcome, but she insists that he stay. She's been lonely, she says, with only her sleeping mother for company. Would Cameron stay with her? Of course, he obliges. It isn't like he has anywhere to be. If his parents are to be believed, his heart is about to give out any moment. So, he stays, and he doesn't mind it at all.

Eventually, one of the nurses comes to shoo Cameron back to bed because he has a big day coming up tomorrow, Doctor Goodkin, and he needs your rest. He sighs, reluctant to leave Kirsten and her mother. "Are you going to be alright?" he asks her, his voice genuine. He reaches out and touches her arm. "Yes," she says. "I'll be alright. Are you?" Cameron considers this for a few moments before he agrees. "I'll see you around?" he says, and it's more of a question. He really, really wants to see her around. He has no friends, or didn't before her. He likes to think this means he and Kirsten are friends. Kirsten smiles and nods. "See you around," she agrees.

Cameron decides this means they're friends.

They are friends, because Cameron comes around again and again and again. He wanders the halls at night and comes into Kirsten's mom's room and they paint her nails and watch movies on the TV and tell stories. One evening, she and Cameron set up a little blanket tent and by the light of the monitors attached to Kirsten's mom, Cameron reads to her.

After this first night, Cameron reads to her more, reads to both Kirsten and her mother. For some reason, Kirsten is fascinated with Cameron's love of literature. He has a large store of books in his hospital room, and he brings a new one every time they finish one. He reads her It by Stephen King and the Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien and Of Mice and Men and Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia. He reads to them every night, reads everything under the sun that he can.

Reading isn't the only thing they do. Kirsten and Cameron take to roaming the halls together when Cameron isn't having therapy or Kirsten isn't our with her father. They play pranks on the nurses which collect a lot of smiles. They visit other residents, some of whom Cameron has come to know well. But mostly, they just talk. They walk the halls together and they just talk. Cameron learns about the car accident that left Kirsten's mother in a coma. Kirsten learns about Cameron's heart. Cameron learns that Kirsten broke her pinkie toe once. Kirsten learns that more than anything else, Cameron wants to be a scientist. They learn almost everything about each other that it is possible to know.

The days when he can't see Kirsten are the worst, the boring ones. Those are the ones where he pours over It alone in his hospital bed with his knees drawn up, listening to his heart beat erratically in his chest. But those days are few and far between. Because most of the time, Kirsten is there. She is always there, and Cameron is always there.

Until one day, he isn't. Kirsten hums to herself, holding a book under one arm. She had picked it up at the library, thinking that maybe Cameron hadn't read it yet and he would like to. She steps into his room but finds it empty. Her heart stops dead. This is Cameron's room. All of his things are even still in it, the posters taped to the walls and his stacks of books. But Cameron is gone! Where has he gone? He's always here this time of day, always. She wheels around but before she can stalk to the nurses' station and demand answers - although, she is only in 8th grade so she doesn't know how intimidating she is - she is confronted.

The nurse doesn't so much ask if she's looking for Cameron as tells her, and Kirsten nods emoathetically. But what the nurse tells her isn't what she wants to hear at all. What the nurse tells her is that there was a complication and that Cameron has been taken into surgery.

She doesn't sit still for the rest of the day, pacing back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, her arms angrily crossed. She doesn't even pause to paint her mother's nails anymore. She needs to see Cameron. She brought him a book! Eventually, she tires herself out pacing, and she finds herself being woken up by a hand on her arm. She thinks this is odd because she doesn't recall falling asleep. But the nurse is telling her that Cameron is back from surgery and he is awake and would she like to see him?

Kirsten is out the door in moments, before the woman has finished speaking. She makes a beeline for Cameron's room. When she finally enters, still clutching the book, she sees an unfamiliar woman by his bedside. It takes her a few moments to realize this is Cameron's mother. For all the time they spent together in the hospital these summer months, she has yet to meet her best friend's mother.

She hesitates and doesn't move until Cameron's mother does. She tells Kirsten to come on in and sit down, it's about time she met the girl who is coercing her son into high school. Kirsten frowns, slowly making her way over to the other chair beside Cameron's bed. High school? She had mentioned once how she didn't want to go without her best friend, and Cameron had sadly explained he'd been homeschooled his entire life because his heart was too weak to do much. But he said he'd try...

Kirsten takes her seat, hugging the book to her chest. Cameron's mom reads the title - Flowers for Algenon - before she speaks again, telling Kirsten that she had considered it. Possibly for the second semester, Cameron would be well enough to enter high school. Her heart swells in her chest. She won't have to do it alone! She finds herself thanking Cameron's mother, babbling until she is silenced with a smile. Well, a smile, and Cameron stirring. "Kirsten?" he whispers, and Kirsten smiles again. They have four wonderful years ahead of them, four magnificent years. They'll spend all night studying for exams together, they will go to football games together, go to prom, apply for colleges, go to college... Cameron will be there when Kirsten's mother wakes up and Kirste will be there when his heart fails again. They'll even have their first kiss in that very same room they sit in now.

"Cameron," she says, beaming, and everything is good.


End file.
